This document represents an aggregated, ordered and contextualized view of the material we've been able to compile and publish that is related to the topic of "Partner Support Management." The goal is to make this page a landing and launch point for all things related to this topic. As our content becomes more complete and more accurate, this page should become a very useful and powerful knowledge base for this topic and all parties interested in it.

You'll find that the content for this document is consistent with that of other discipline related documents. This is intentional. The consistency is based on a knowledge pattern that helps individuals learn more about different topics, quicker and more efficiently. We hope you find the material useful and easy to learn.

It's important to realize that content in this document and any related sub-documents are constantly evolving. Therefore, we recommend you check for updates, regularly, to keep up with the latest material.

The Foundation always welcomes your feedback and suggestions for improvement, as we're always looking for ways to improve our solutions and offerings to the general community.

All solutions published by the Foundation are subject to the terms and conditions of the Foundation's Master Agreement.

This document or artifact, along with everything in it, is intended to act as a "Framework" that addresses various aspects of Partner Support Management.

The readers will notice that most sections in the Table of Contents (TOC) use a format where the TOC entry is prefixed with a topic name, followed by a short descriptive title (i.e. "TOPIC_NAME: TOPIC_RELATED_SECTION_TITLE"). This is intentional and represents a format by which the Foundation may achieve things like the identification of appropriate topic areas, the segregation of distinct topic areas from each other, the appropriate ordering of topic areas, and achieve the maintenance of consistency, both, within and across different IT Disciplines.

To elaborate, this artifact is intended to:

Organize different areas of the discipline known as Partner Support Management into clear and compartmentalized areas that allow the Foundation to more effectively and productively collect, document and publish information that pertains to this discipline.

Decompose each area of Partner Support Management into smaller and, therefore, more digestible units for more efficient learning and understanding.

Document common industry wisdom about each area, piece or subcomponent of Partner Support Management

Act as a set of Partner Support Management related best practices and guidelines that have been collected, documented, and published for the benefit of IT Professionals, regardless of their specific industry, line of business, or area of expertise.

Act as a consistent and repeatable pattern for documenting, publishing and learning, both, within this Discipline and across "all" Disciplines.

From the Foundation's perspective, if done correctly, all of the above will allow the Foundation to properly decompose, document and publish content related to each sub-area or sub-topic for each IT Discipline, including this specific discipline (i.e. "Partner Support Management").

From the reader's perspective, if done correctly, all of the above will allow him or her to easily find and learn about specific areas of interest associated with this and all other IT Disciplines in a manner where the reader may effectively consume and digest material in small atomic segments that act as repeatable and more effective learning units.

As this artifact evolves and progresses, the reader will see it address key areas of the professional IT Discipline "Partner Support Management" that range from its detailed definition through closely related terms, phrases and their definitions, to its detailed specification of Partner Support Management Capabilities, and all the way through to defining, delivering, operating and supporting Partner Support Management Services.

As mentioned previously, this document will continue to evolve and the Foundation recommends the reader check back, regularly, to stay abreast of modifications and new developments. It is also important to understand that the structure of this artifact may change to meet the needs of such evolution.

Before moving on to learn more about the rest of the Partner Support Management framework, we suggest that you take some time to familiarlize yourself with the following very basic term(s)...

Partner Support:

"1. The formal or informal assistance or Support given to or received from a Partner."

Partner Support Management:

"1. The professional discipline that involves working with, in or on any aspect of planning, delivering, operating or supporting for one or more Partner Support Items or any and all solutions put in place to deal with such Items.

2. The solution set that a person or organization puts in place to manage one or more Partner Support Items.

3. The process or processes put in place by a person or organization to assist in the management, coordination, control, delivery, or support of one or more Partner Support Items.

4. The Enterprise Capability that represents the general ability or functional capacity for a Resource or Organization to deal with or handle one or more Partner Support Items. Such a term is often used by Information Technology (IT) Architects when performing or engaging in the activities associated with general Capability Modeling."

In addition to the above basic term(s), you can also learn a great deal about Partner Support Management by familiarizing yourself with the broader spectrum of terms that make up the Partner Support Management Glossary...

Language between IT professionals and the businesses we serve is often a significant barrier to success, as we often spend countless hours trying to interpret each other's meanings. This is often also true between IT professionals who are taught to use certain terms and definitions as part of the organizations and industries they serve. It's when you start to jump from organization to organization, from enterprise to enterprise, and from industry to industry that you realize how much time and effort is wasted on just getting language and meanings correct. For these reasons, the Foundation puts a great deal of focus on terms and phrases, as well as their corresponding definitions. We highly recommend you spend time learning and understanding all of the related terms and phrases, along with their meanings, for all areas of "Partner Support Management."

Please refer to the IT Glossary for other terms and phrases that may be relevant to this professional discipline.

Readers may also refer to the Taxonomy of Glossaries for terms and phrases that are semantically grouped according to IT Disciplines or enterprise domains.

This Partner Support Management Glossary is a contextual subset of the master IF4IT Glossary of Terms and Phrases. The master glossary can be used by you and your enterprise as a foundation for broader understanding of Information Technology and can be used as a teaching and learning tool for those you work with, helping to ensure a common and more standard language.

A Capability, as it pertains to Information Technology (IT) or to an enterprise that an IT Organization serves, is defined to be "A manageable feature, faculty, function, process, service or discipline that represents an ability to perform something which yields an expected set of results and is capable of further advancement or development. In other words, a Capability is nothing more than "the ability to do something" or, quite simply, a Feature or Function. Therefore, when applied to an enterprise, a Capability represents a critical Enterprise Feature or Enterprise Function.

When it comes to Capabilities, there are multiple types that an enterprise needs to be aware of. Examples include but are not limited to:

Business Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a Business.

Information Technology (IT) Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by an IT Organization.

System Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a System

Service Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by a Service

Organizational Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by one or more Organizations.

Enterprise Capabilities: A set of Capabilities needed and/or offered by an Enterprise (i.e. the combined set of all of the above).

As can be seen above, there are Capabilities that are associated with Resources, Organizations, and Assets such as Systems. All are important to an enterprise.

In the case of this IT Discipline (i.e. Partner Support Management), we use the word Capability in the context of an Enterprise Capability or an IT Capability, which are both equivalent to Enterprise Disciplines or IT Disciplines, respectively. In short, the Capability of Partner Support Management represents the ability to deal with any and all Partner Support Items and anything relevant that is related to or associated with any Partner Support Items.

If you think about it, a capability is really nothing more than a "verb" or "action that represents "the ability to do something." Understanding this allows us to derive a consistent and highly repeatable set of sub-capabilities for any Noun we're dealing with. For example:

The ability to architect a specific Noun.

The ability to copy a specific Noun.

The ability to create a specific Noun.

The ability to delete a specific Noun.

The ability to design a specific Noun.

The ability to edit a specific Noun.

The ability to modify a specific Noun.

The ability to purge a specific Noun.

The ability to request a specific Noun.

Etc. (The list is quite long.)

In summary, the implication is that the Enterprise Capability or Enterprise Discipline known as Partner Support Management is the superset of all the above Sub-Capabilities, as they pertain to or are applied to the discipline-specific Noun: "Partner Support." This now translates more specifically to:

The ability to architect a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to copy a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to create a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to delete a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to design a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to edit a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to modify a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to purge a specific Partner Support Item.

The ability to request a specific Partner Support Item.

Etc. (The list is quite long.)

For a more complete list of very specific Capabilities/Disciplines, refer to the Foundation's Master Inventory of IT Disciplines. It is important to note that this inventory is in a flat or non-hierarchical form, specifically because "hierarchy" is almost always a matter of personal preference or context (what hierarchy is important to one Resource or Organization may be unimportant to another's needs or requirements). Therefore, the Foundation has published its inventory of Capabilities in a non-hierarchical, flat form.

This now brings us to a very obvious problem that surrounds Capabilities, which is the fact that there are simply too many "granular" or "specific" Capabilities to document and publish in any single Capability Model. The end result is that a Capability Model may become unwieldy because of trying to incorporate so many different specific Capabilities. Also, Capability Modeling "Purists," who all have their own (and very differing) opinions about how Capability Models should or should not be represented, almost always refuse to get into the details. To address this, we recommend using a generic set of Capabilities that map to and are driven by the Systems Development Life Cycle. For example:

Identify and Solicit Demand for Partner Support

Create and Set Strategy for Partner Support

Perform Research on or for Partner Support

Plan for the Delivery of Partner Support

Identify Requirements for Partner Support

Define and Design Partner Support

Build or Construct Partner Support

Control Quality of or for Partner Support

Deliver Partner Support (to Meet Identified Demand or Desire)

Operate and Support Partner Support

As you can see from the above, we now have a very limited, controlled and manageable set of Discipline-specific Capabilities for the Discipline Partner Support Management.

As a reminder, the above Capability representations are "suggestions" for baselining or initializing your own Enterprise Capability Model (ECM). It's recommended that you take the time to work with your enterprise stakeholders to improve upon and/or customize your own ECM so that you can help meet their needs. However, with that being said, it's always a better idea to go in with a baseline that you can modify rather than building your own solution from scratch, especially if your goals are to standardize, not reinvent the wheel, and not deviate too far from what other enterprises are doing to model their own environments. This is especially true if you've never had any experience building ECMs that have gained and maintained full adoption.

Why do enterprises perform Capability Modeling? Enterprises most often build Capability Models that are associated with Partner Support Management for the following reasons...

To create a common enterprise language for the Discipline known as Partner Support Management.

To create a common and reusable Partner Support Management Taxonomy (or a Taxonomy for Partner Support Management). Such Taxonomies can be used to help layout or structure an enterprise's Intranet (often for routing and/or traverse-ability) and tag Documents in Document Management Systems.

To create a "Knowledge Map" or "Knowledge Model" for Partner Support Management. Such Knowledge Maps or Models can then be translated and used for structuring training programs, establishing Communities of Practice (CoPs), and defining and publishing things like policies, processes, procedures, and standards.

To help categorize and structure Requirements during Requirements collection and analysis.

To help map things like Applications, Software, and Hardware to the Capability areas of Partner Support Management.

To help define enterprise Services, along with helping to understand who provides and consumes such services.

To help understand what activities go on, in an enterprise, and who performs such activities.

And much more...

Capability Modeling Recommendations: Some things to consider and keep in mind when working on or creating your Partner Support Management and Enterprise Capability Models...

Try and keep "context" or "contexts" out of your core model. For example, your Partner Support Management Stakeholders may work hard to get what's important to them into the model (e.g. their "organizations" or organizational contexts), as opposed to what might actually be best for the enterprise. It's always a good idea to keep the model as pure as possible and keep such contexts out.

While it's a good idea to keep contexts out of your core Capability Model, it will eventually become clear that Capability Contexts are, in fact, very important to your enterprise. You will have to find a way to model and represent such contexts, separately. For example, one context might be an organizational view of what organizations provide or consume specific Capabilities, such as Partner Support Management. Such contexts often represent "cross sectional" or "pivoted" views of your model.

One of the quickest ways to lose the interest of your enterprise is to keep your model secluded or silo-ed in a spreadsheet or database and not publish it or use it for solving other problems in the enterprise. A good Enterprise Capability Model (ECM) helps get to better Service Management Models, better Document Management Taxonomies, and (most importantly) to better Knowledge Models that can be published as traversable content on your Intranet so that stakeholders can, find, learn about, better understand and use such Capabilities.

Once you embark on building an ECM, you will undoubtedly run into the challenge that your Business doesn't speak in terms of "Capabilities." Remember, Capability Models are things that were designed by Information Technology (IT) Architects that, very often, have never worked in a Business, built a Business, or run a Business. Some times, it's better to build models using terminology your Business understands, such as "Services," "Features," or "Functions," all terms that most Businesses are far more familiar with. However, this should not be interpreted as a deterrent to keep you from embarking on building an ECM, should it be the right thing to do for your enterprise.

You will be hard pressed to find many, if any, reusable Capability Models that can be used as solid reference material for your own models, which is why the Foundation has taken the time to document different aspects and issues associated with Capability Modeling and Capability Models.

You will constantly be under pressure to help define and get your Business Stakeholders to understand what a Capability is. It's for this reason that you may want to use terminology that might be more common with Businesses, such as "Services," "Functions," and/or "Features."

It's better to start with a model you can go into your Business Stakeholder meetings with, with the intent of improving upon what you have, than it is to go in with nothing at all and build your models from scratch.

Do your best to work with your Partner Support Management Stakeholders to help verify and improve your Partner Support Management Capability Model.

Don't assume that tools will help solve your Capability Modeling needs. It's always better to start simple and work your way up to tools, after you know what you want to achieve and can realistically achieve.

Good Capability Models will be many levels or layers "deep." Modelers that think they can represent their entire enterprise or all its key Capabilities in just a few levels of hierarchy are fooling themselves or trying to fool those that they're trying to sell their models to.

While Capability Models may look like "hierarchical" structures when building your first few layers, good Capability Models will eventually start to share common Capabilities in different areas of the model, forcing the model to take on the structure of a multidimensional "graph."

Keep your model published and fresh so that the enterprise can see it and use it, immediately. The more eyes you have on your model, the faster it will improve.

Learn More About Capability Models: Taking the time to learn about and understand Capability Models, what they're for, and how they're used may help you learn how Partner Support Management better fits into the broader enterprise. Therefore, we suggest you spend some time reviewing and understanding the IF4IT Enterprise Capability Model...

Here's a very simple fact... If an enterprise does not establish and enforce clearly defined Ownership (i.e. a Resources and his or her Organization are assigned as accountable ownership) for Partner Support Management, the enterprise has automatically set itself up for failure in its implementation of that discipline. Therefore, if you and your enterprise want to implement and maintain a successful solution for Partner Support Management, there must be a clearly defined Owner that can and will be held accountable for getting work done, providing transparency, helping with strategy setting, and coordinating implementation of Partner Support Management as a fully functional and mature enterprise Service.

Having clearly defined Ownership should not be confused with having fully dedicated Resources that spend one hundred percent of their time working on Partner Support Management. In fact, smaller enterprises can rarely afford to dedicate full time Resources, like larger enterprises can, to all enterprise IT Disciplines. This being the case, all IT Disciplines, including Partner Support Management, should "always" have clearly defined Owners so that there is always a clear point of accountability and contact for any issues or work that need to be addressed.

In addition to the common best practice of having clearly assigned Ownership for Partner Support Management, it is also considered a best practice to clearly publish and socialize Partner Support Management Ownership details to a centralized location (often referred to as a "Service Catalog" or an "Enterprise Service Catalog"), along with Ownership details for all other IT Disciplines, so that the entire enterprise has constant access to it.

Figure: How Ownership of the Capability Partner Support Management fits into the Canonical Model for IT

The above figure helps us understand how Capability or Discipline Ownership fits into the Canonical Model for Information Technology (IT) (i.e. "Think," "Deliver," and "Operate"). Owners are assigned to individual Disciplines or Capabilities, such as Partner Support Management, and are instantly made accountable to the enterprise for the results of all Partner Support Management Thinking activities (i.e. Strategy, Research, Planning and Design), all Partner Support Management Delivery activities (i.e. Construction, Deployment and Quality Assurance), and all Partner Support Management Operations activities (i.e. Use, Maintenance and Support). Done correctly, Partner Support Management Ownership is constant and ongoing. It's important to understand that such assigned Ownership should "never" end so that there is clear and constant accountability and transparency for all aspects of the Canonical Model to the enterprise.

Not having clear Ownership for Partner Support Management means that there is no clear understanding of who is accountable for it, who can provide understanding of what's going on within it, who can help the enterprise provide short term and long term descriptions of work being performed within the Discipline area to improve it over time for its customers, and who can help with getting work done that's associated with it. It means your or your enterprise's implementation for Partner Support Management will be highly incomplete and erratic because no one is constantly (or even partially) watching over the Discipline and its needs for maintenance and evolution. Not having clear Partner Support Management Ownership is a recipe for confusion and, sometimes, even chaos.

In summary, if you and your enterprise truly want to be successful with your implementation of Partner Support Management, ensure that a clear and highly accountable owner is identified and assigned to the Discipline. Publish those ownership details, preferably in an enterprise's Service Catalog, and socialize it so everyone knows whom to go to for answers and for help with Partner Support Management related work. In other words, if you want to implement Partner Support Management as an enterprise Service, then you absolutely must start with clearly defined, published and socialized Ownership.

Throughout the Foundation's documentation, you will continuously run into the references of "Nouns and Verbs." These concepts are key to consistency and standardization, throughout the IT Industry, down to each and every IT Discipline. Given that we've discussed the impact of "Nouns" on the discipline of "Partner Support Management," this section will start to discuss the importance of "Verbs" or "Actions" that can be performed with or against the key Noun or Nouns associated with this Discipline. To reiterate, Verbs or Actions allow us to clearly understand what can be performed on or with the Noun in question. As will be discussed in the next section, Verbs or Actions will also help us clearly identify whom it is (i.e. the "who" or more specifically the Roles) that performs or executes such Verbs or Actions against a Discipline and its associated Noun or Nouns. As will be discussed later, Verbs or Actions will also help identify key Attributes (i.e. Field Names) that are necessary for the very data definition of the Noun or Nouns for this Discipline and will even help identify which Verbs or Actions can be automated for this Discipline.

As a reminder, the base Noun for the discipline known as Partner Support Management is: "Partner Support," which is sometimes referred to as a the Noun: "Partner Support Item."

By now, it should be becoming apparent that verbs represent a baseline for defining solid functional requirements and sub-capabilities for what would be a part of any good Partner Support Management System or Service. What this means is that if you and/or your Organization is looking for a solution in this space (e.g. the purchasing or building of a software solution or the implementation of a Service to address the needs of Partner Support Management), you could use discipline-related verbs to drive the foundation of what the solution should or shouldn't do, as mapped to specific stakeholders that will use or provide the solution.

Examples of the types of Verbs or Actions that are important to this Discipline include but are not limited to:

Architect

Create

Edit/Modify

Delete

Design

Copy

Own

Manage

Etc.

The above list represents a very small subset of all Verbs or Actions that are relevant for this Discipline. The more complete set can be found in the Roles section of this document, where readers can see the direct correlation of Verb to Noun and to, both, Generic Role and Discipline Specific Role.

An "action" or a "verb" is something that can be performed on or with a specific "noun." The reason it is important to itemize all relevant verbs is because we can now start to determine what we can or cannot do with the noun in question, where in this case the noun is "Partner Support."

Actions/Verbs

Example as Applied to "Partner Support"

Generic Roles

Discipline-Specific Roles

Administrate

Administrate Partner Support

Administrator

Partner Support Administrator

Approve

Approve Partner Support

Approver

Partner Support Approver

Architect

Architect Partner Support

Architector

Partner Support Architector

Archive

Archive Partner Support

Archiver

Partner Support Archiver

Audit

Audit Partner Support

Auditor

Partner Support Auditor

Bundle

Bundle Partner Support

Bundler

Partner Support Bundler

Clone

Clone Partner Support

Cloner

Partner Support Cloner

Code

Code Partner Support

Coder

Partner Support Coder

Configure

Configure Partner Support

Configurer

Partner Support Configurer

Copy

Copy Partner Support

Copier

Partner Support Copier

Create

Create Partner Support

Creator

Partner Support Creator

Decommission

Decommission Partner Support

Decommissioner

Partner Support Decommissioner

Delete

Delete Partner Support

Deletor

Partner Support Deletor

Deploy

Deploy Partner Support

Deployer

Partner Support Deployer

Deprecate

Deprecate Partner Support

Deprecator

Partner Support Deprecator

Design

Design Partner Support

Designer

Partner Support Designer

Destroy

Destroy Partner Support

Destroyer

Partner Support Destroyer

Develop

Develop Partner Support

Developer

Partner Support Developer

Distribute

Distribute Partner Support

Distributor

Partner Support Distributor

Download

Download Partner Support

Downloader

Partner Support Downloader

Edit

Edit Partner Support

Editor

Partner Support Editor

Educate

Educate Partner Support

Educator

Partner Support Educator

Export

Export Partner Support

Exporter

Partner Support Exporter

Govern

Govern Partner Support

Governor

Partner Support Governor

Import

Import Partner Support

Importer

Partner Support Importer

Initialize

Initialize Partner Support

Initializer

Partner Support Initializer

Install

Install Partner Support

Installer

Partner Support Installer

Instantiate

Instantiate Partner Support

Instantiator

Partner Support Instantiator

Integrate

Integrate Partner Support

Integrator

Partner Support Integrator

Manage

Manage Partner Support

Manager

Partner Support Manager

Merge

Merge Partner Support

Merger

Partner Support Merger

Modify

Modify Partner Support

Modifier

Partner Support Modifier

Move

Move Partner Support

Mover

Partner Support Mover

Own

Own Partner Support

Owner

Partner Support Owner

Package

Package Partner Support

Packager

Partner Support Packager

Persist

Persist Partner Support

Persister

Partner Support Persister

Plan

Plan Partner Support

Planner

Partner Support Planner

Purge

Purge Partner Support

Purger

Partner Support Purger

Receive

Receive Partner Support

Receiver

Partner Support Receiver

Record

Record Partner Support

Recorder

Partner Support Recorder

Recover

Recover Partner Support

Recoverer

Partner Support Recoverer

Register

Register Partner Support

Registrar

Partner Support Registrar

Relocate

Relocate Partner Support

Relocator

Partner Support Relocator

Reject

Reject Partner Support

Rejecter

Partner Support Rejecter

Remove

Remove Partner Support

Remover

Partner Support Remover

Replicate

Replicate Partner Support

Replicator

Partner Support Replicator

Report

Report Partner Support

Reporter

Partner Support Reporter

Request

Request Partner Support

Requestor

Partner Support Requestor

Restore

Restore Partner Support

Restorer

Partner Support Restorer

Review

Review Partner Support

Reviewer

Partner Support Reviewer

Save

Save Partner Support

Saver

Partner Support Saver

Search

Search Partner Support

Searcher

Partner Support Searcher

Split

Split Partner Support

Splitter

Partner Support Splitter

Sponsor

Sponsor Partner Support

Sponsor

Partner Support Sponsor

Store

Store Partner Support

Storer

Partner Support Storer

Strategize

Strategize Partner Support (or Set Partner Support Strategy)

Strategizer (or Strategy Setter)

Partner Support Strategizer (or Partner Support Strategy Setter)

Support

Support Partner Support

Supporter

Partner Support Supporter

Test

Test Partner Support

Tester

Partner Support Tester

Train

Train Partner Support

Trainer

Partner Support Trainer

Upgrade

Upgrade Partner Support

Upgrader

Partner Support Upgrader

Upload

Upload Partner Support

Uploader

Partner Support Uploader

Verify

Verify Partner Support

Verifier

Partner Support Verifier

Version

Version Partner Support

Versioner

Partner Support Versioner

View

View Partner Support

Viewer

Partner Support Viewer

At a minimum, the above list of Verbs can be used to help identify, track, and manage the basic "Features" required by and associated with Partner Support Management, even if your enterprise doesn't maintain a Capability Model that lists specific Partner Support Management Capabilities. Application designers, developers, and architects often find such Verb Lists or Feature Inventories to be invaluable.

...a documented and orderly set of types, classifications, categorizations and/or principles that are often achieved through mechanisms including but not limited to naming, defining and/or the grouping of attributes, and which ultimately help to describe, differentiate, identify, arrange and provide contextual relationships between the entities for which the Taxonomy exists.

From this general definition, we can derive that the definition for a Partner Support Management Taxonomy is:

...a documented and orderly set of types, classifications, categorizations and/or principles that are often achieved through mechanisms including but not limited to naming, defining and/or the grouping of attributes, and which ultimately help to describe, differentiate, identify, arrange and provide contextual relationships between Partner Support Items, Entities or Types.

In short, what this means all means is that a Taxonomy is nothing more than a classification or typing mechanism and that a Partner Support Taxonomy is nothing more than a classification or typing mechanism that helps people and systems distinguish between different Partner Support Items, Entities, Types, Records or any other Partner Support Management element you can think of.

It's important to understand that Taxonomies can be as simple as a list of relevant terms or phrases with respective meanings or definitions or they can take on more complex forms, such as hierarchical and graphical model structures that can be homogeneous and heterogeneous in nature. More complex Taxonomies include examples such as "Visual Taxonomies" and "Audible Taxonomies" but, expect in the case of very special technologies, are typically out of scope for general Information Technology (IT) Operations.

The Foundation directs readers to its ever-evolving Inventory of Taxonomies for Standard Taxonomy suggestions. Specifically, readers may want to start with the Taxonomy of Taxonomies, which helps make it clear that the IT Industry is composed of many hundreds if not thousands of Taxonomies, Classifications, Categorizations or Types.

While Taxonomies represent organized classifications or types, you can think of Ontologies as the design and representation of entire lanaguages, with the specific intent to control things like structure, behavior, representation, and meaning. Without getting into a theoretical conversations about Ontologies, you can view this entire article as a foundation for the ontology of Partner Support Management. Or, in other words, a Partner Support Management Ontology.

Throughout this artifact/framework, you will find things like Partner Support Management related terms, phrases, definitions, roles, responsibilities, nouns, verbs, classifications, and so on, all as a means of definining a standard representation for and interpretation of the language of Partner Support Management.

It is only through the definition, communication, and establishment of such Ontologies that we can standardize language and communication associated with Partner Support Management, whether it be between humans and/or systems.

When we talk about Life Cycle (or lifecycle) for Partner Support Management, it's important to keep in mind that there are two different types of Life Cycles that apply. The first is a Data Life Cycle, which addresses Partner Support Management data or entities, and the second is associated with delivering Partner Support Management Assets like Systems or Software solutions.

Partner Support Management Data Life Cycle Phases:

Data Lifecycle (or Life Cycle) for any and all data is the period from the "inception" of data through to its ultimately being "purged" from existence. This is no different for Partner Support Management related data.

Like the data associated with any other professional IT Discipline, Partner Support Management related data adheres to the following common Data Lifecycle Phases:

Figure: Partner Support Management Lifecycle Phases

Inception: Data is in it's raw idea-like form and is not ready for consumption by the general population because it has not been documented or registered, anywhere, in a formal manner.

Creation and Registration: Data is formally put into existence for day-to-day use by appropriate stakeholders.

Iterative Maintenance: Data is in a mode of constant use and is updated and modified, as needed, to meet the needs of daily use by various stakeholders.

Decommission and Deletion: Data is prepared for deletion and eventually deleted from daily operational use but still exists for administrative or organizational purposes, such as historical auditing. It can be restored to any one of its relevant last states and, therefore, can be brought back into existence for day-to-day use.

Purged From Existence: Data is completely removed from an environment with no means to restore or reconstruct it, without recreating it from scratch and with no guarantees that it will match it's previous state.

The above Life Cycle Phases represent the high level transitions that occur from the inception of Partner Support Items or Entities all the way through to their complete elimination from existence. A more detailed breakdown of these transitions or phases represents what are referred to as "Partner Support Management States."

Partner Support Management Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Phases or Partner Support Management Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Phases:

The SDLC is a means for facilitating and controlling how IT Professionals deliver Assets, such as Partner Support Management Systems and Software. In this case, you should default to the master SDLC, which is used to deliver any Asset of any type, including those associated with the Partner Support Management discipline.

There are probably no greater or more important tools for providing Partner Support Management transparency and direction than the collection, ordering, categorizing, grouping, and maintenance of all related Partner Support Items. In other words, Partner Support Management Inventories.

In short, an Inventory represents a list of individual things or instances of things that are typically all of the same Noun Type or Data Type, where these instances are described and detailed by their Attributes, along with the Data and Information that act as values for such Attributes.

At a minimum, Partner Support Management Inventories are used for the establishment of solid Partner Support Configuration Management practices, as the Partner Support Instances tracked within such Partner Support Inventories act as Configuration Items (in Target and/or Dependency form) for key Configurations (Partner Support Management Configurations or otherwise).

Inventories are also used for solid decision making. Good decisions, either strategic or tactical, are made based on having good Data and Information. And, good Data and Information only come from taking the time to follow best practices associated with Inventory Management. It's only through building such Inventories that an enterprise can achieve solid Partner Support Management Business Intelligence and Reporting.

Also, it's these very same Inventories that act as the foundation for understanding and managing Total Cost of Ownership (a.k.a. "TCO") for Partner Support Management. Without such Inventories, trying to understand your costs can be nothing more than uneducated guessing.

The obvious place to start is with Partner Support Inventories and then move on to surrounding Inventories that are directly and indirectly related to Partner Support Management.

Additionally, there are many other types of Inventories that are common and important to Partner Support Management, which include but are not limited to examples such as:

People and Organizations related to Partner Support Management

Roles, Responsibilities, and Skills related to Partner Support Management

Products and Services related to Partner Support Management

Capabilities related to Partner Support Management

Contracts, Agreements, and Licenses related to Partner Support Management

Processes related to Partner Support Management

Tools and Technologies (e.g. Systems/Applications/Software/Computers) related to Partner Support Management

Data Types and Instances related to Partner Support Management

Data Interfaces related to Partner Support Management

Environments related to Partner Support Management

Facilities and Locations related to Partner Support Management

If you and/or your enterprise are not collecting and maintaining such Inventories, you're probably considered to be very low on the efficiency and effectiveness maturity scale.

It's important to keep in mind that collecting and managing Partner Support Management Inventories is something that should be performed across all phases of Partner Support Management Lifecycle and across all Environments (i.e. Partner Support Management Environments). Both are considered to be very important Best Practices. For example, you and/or your enterprise cannot get a complete understanding of Partner Support Management costs or impacts without knowing all related Inventory Items in all environments. And, tracking across all lifecycle phases gives a temporal perspective that is important for things like problem analysis, historical reporting, and the reconstruction of state (i.e. Configuration Management).

NOTE: Partner Support Management Inventories are also important for other enterprise functions, such as Architecture and Design. Such Inventories represent the foundation for understanding an enterprise's Current State and are critical for planning Future State and any related strategies, roadmaps, and transition plans for facilititating change.

Building environments that are specific to and for the discipline known as Partner Support Management is no different than doing so for any other discipline area. The reader should, therefore, refer to the IT Environment Framework to understand such environments.

As with any professional Discipline, the place to start with when dealing with Partner Support Management specific metrics is with standard metrics categorizations. Standard Metrics Categorizations, or what are commonly referred to as "SMCs," include but are not limited to...

Partner Support Management Quantitative Metrics: Quantitative metrics for Partner Support Management often revolve around the "counting" of key constructs that are associated with the Discipline. For example, the number of Partner Support Items or Entities that have been Created, Edited or Modified, Copied or Cloned, Destroyed, Archived, Restored, etc. (Note the correlations to key Partner Support Management Verbs!). Also, the counts for things like the number of Partner Support Management Stakeholders, such as but not limited to Paying Customers, End Users, Employees, Consultants, etc. are also very useful.

Partner Support Management Qualitative Metrics: Qualitative metrics for Partner Support Management often revolve around concepts such as Partner Support Management Defects, Failures, Problems, Incidents, and/or Issues. So, for example, if we were to capture the number of Partner Support Management Defects (i.e. their counts) over time, we could do things like see if Defect quantities are going up or down, over time, allowing us to explore that area for things like correlating Causes and Effects.

Partner Support Management Time Metrics: When dealing with Partner Support Management Time Metrics, there are usually two forms. The first was introduced in the previous paragraph, which has to do with capturing and measuring things like Quantitative or Qualitative Metrics, over time. In this case, we capture other metric categories, over time, with the intent to see how they change and perform, based on modifications to the Partner Support Management Operating Environment. The second form of Time related metrics has to do with system or operational performance, such as in the case of how long it takes to process a Partner Support Management Request, from the time it is created to the time the Requester gets a satisfactory deliverable that allows him or her to move on with his or her work.

Partner Support Management Utilization Metrics: Utilization Metrics specifically have to do with the consumption of Partner Support Management specific solutions or deliverables. For example, tracking the number of Partner Support Management Service Requests, over periods of time, along with their corresponding Partner Support Management Deliverables, allows one to measure how active Partner Support Management Services are against other Services that may exist within the Enterprise.

Partner Support Management Financial Metrics: As is always the case for any single Discipline, Financial Metrics for Partner Support Management always revolve around things like revenue, expenses, and profits, both, for operators of the Service or Services and for consumers of the Service or Services. For example, if a Partner Support Management Request is invoked by a Partner Support Management Customer (acting as the "Requester"), it becomes important to be able to identify and understand what the cost is to that Customer who is invoking the Request, and it also becomes important to understand why that cost is what it is. In the case of Services that do not yield revenue or profits, measuring costs is a strong way to, at very least, help understand the costs associated with each Service being performed by, within, external to, and for the Enterprise and its Customers.

Note: It's important to understand that, when it comes to metrics, enterprises should take a "Crawl," "Walk," "Run" approach to collecting, working with, and understanding them. That is, you cannot get to complex metrics collection, dissection, analysis, and understanding until you start with basic metrics and slowly work your way to more complex metrics representations.

One of the most important concepts you will learn about Partner Support Management (or any Discipline, for that matter) is the notion of implementing the Discipline as an accountable, planned, controlled, transparent, and managed "Service."

In short, Services represent a logically "bounded" and repeatable sets of work types, activities or tasks that are performed by humans and/or machines, with the specific intent to provide outputs or deliverables, in the form of solutions for the requesting Stakeholders who are commonly considered the customers of such Services. In other words, we perform and/or provide a Service to deliver very specific solutions to very specific Stakeholders who are looking for a means to solve a certain problem they have.

A Partner Support Management Service is defined as:

"1. A set of solutions, either transactional (i.e. Transactional Partner Support Management Services) or dial-tone (i.e. Dial-Tone Partner Support Management Services), that are being or have been put in place to yield an intended, controlled, expected, repeatable and measurable set of results or deliverables for Partner Support Management specific Customers, Consumers or Clients.

NOTE: Partner Support Management Service Consumers or Clients can be either Human Resources or Systems."

All Services, including Partner Support Management Services, can be performed manually (i.e. by people), automatically (i.e. by machines such as Computers), or by a combination of the two (i.e. a hybrid that is both manually and automated).

Also, all Services, including Partner Support Management Services, can be either transactional or dial tone, in nature.

In the case of Transactional Services for Partner Support Management, a Service Request is submitted and that Request is fulfilled as part of a process that is either manual, automated, or a hybrid of both (e.g. a Service to perform maintainance on your Partner Support Management System).

In the case of Dial Tone Services for Partner Support Management, a Service is expected to be up, running, available, and accessible to an End User so that he/she/it may perform some controlled and highly repeatable function (e.g. a "Partner Support Management System" that is up and running all the time).

Partner Support Management Service Components: The successful implementation of Partner Support Management as a set of Services for your enterprise usually implies that a number of key components have been established to support it. These components are:

A clearly documented and socialized Partner Support Management Service Owner that is held accountable for Service performance, quality, and cost.

A clearly documented and socialized Partner Support Management Service Provider, Organization or Group who is performing the Service or work.

A clearly documented and socialized inventory of all Partner Support Management Service Inputs, including Partner Support Management Service Requests and any artifacts necessary to support such Requests so that consumers of the Service know how to engage and request or take advantage of them.

For every Partner Support Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory of Partner Support Management Service Outputs, making it clear to consumers what they can expect to receive as a result of a successful Service Request.

For every Partner Support Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory of the work being performed by the Service Provider to achieve such Outputs or Deliverables.

For every Partner Support Management Service Input, a clearly documented and socialized inventory Service Level Agreements (e.g. Service Availability, Service Duration, Service Guarantees, etc.) that can be used to set expectations and measure actuals against for said Service Outputs.

Clearly specified Partner Support Management Service Costs that help set expectations for Service Requesters (i.e. the cost of a request) and that provide clear transparency to the organizations that fund and sponsor such Services (i.e. the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) your Service(s).

Partner Support Management Service Request Patterns (Estimation Creation, Modification, Decommission, Support/Incidents, Complaints, etc.) in order to create intuitive and repeatable user experiences across different Service Types.

Clearly understand what Partner Support Management Service Resources are required, human or otherwise, to create and deliver your Partner Support Management Service Deliverables, in a repeatable, cost-efficient, timely, and high quality manner.

For every Partner Support Management Service Request, understand the chargeback mechanism, in order to recoup your Service Costs.

For every Partner Support Management Service, it's important to understand the skills that are required, will need to be developed, and will need to be maintained by Service Resources, in order to deliver each Service Deliverable.

It's important to understand who your Partner Support Management Service Stakeholders are, this includes but is not limited to your Customers, Consumers, Clients, Sponsers, etc. are, as well as the types of problems it is that they're trying to solve or interests that they will have in your Services.

Partner Support Management Ownership: The most important thing to understand about a Partner Support Management Service is that, in order for such a Service to be successful, there must be a clear and accountable Owner for it. That is, there needs to be a very clear and accountable named person or organization that owns and is fully responsible for the Service, all of its sub-Services and, most importantly, all of the Service's "Outcomes." Without clear ownership, Services are almost never successful. And, for those few occasions where Services are successful without clear ownership, you can assume that they're successful because the people working in those Service areas are acting as heroes, or... the those Services are just plain lucky (that kind of luck doesn't last for long).

Partner Support Management Service Inputs: There are typically two types of inputs to any Partner Support Management Service. The first is what is known as a "Partner Support Management Service Request" and the second really represents any and all supporting artifacts that are necessary to support such requests, including but not limited to Data and Information in the form of Documents, either electronic or paper in form. Many would argue that the "money" to pay for the Service execution of the Request would be the third but, for now, we will assume that payment is controlled through the Data and Information provided to the Service Operators, in support of the Request.

Partner Support Management Service Outputs: The outputs of any Service are often referred to as the Service's Deliverables. Therefore, the readers should be aware that the terms "Partner Support Management Outputs" and "Partner Support Management Deliverables" are synonymous and interchangeable. All work performed in any enterprise is, by default, a Service that is being performed for someone else and, therefore, all work or Services yield results. These results are the Service's Outputs or Deliverables and a good Service ensures that such Outputs are appropriately documented to the consumers of said Service. This means that for any given Partner Support Management Service Request Type or Category there will be one or more clearly defined and documented Outputs or Deliverables, making it clear to the consumer what he, she, or they will get in response to their Request. This can be as simple as an answer to a question or as complex as the Merger of two enterprises.

Partner Support Management Service Levels: Service Levels represent "performance agreements," contractual or otherwise, that dictate how well a Partner Support Management Service should perform, most often keeping the Customers, Consumers, Clients or End Users of the Service in mind. Partner Support Management Service Levels can come in many forms and are often worked out by the Customers paying for the Services and the Service Providers who sell or provide the Services. In many cases, Service Levels are also self-imposed by the Service Providers performing the Services as a means to set expectations for Service Customers. In short, Partner Support Management Service Levels are constraints, limitations, and/or expectations that are tied directly to Partner Support Management Service Deliverables. They represent measures for things like quality, efficiency, and cost against said Deliverables or Outputs that allow the consumer of such Services to measure what they actually get against what they expected to get.

Assuming an enterprise pursues the establishment of Partner Support Management as a set of controlled Services, there are three common paradigms for doing so. These include:

A "Centralized Partner Support Management" implementation paradigm

A "Federated Partner Support Management" implementation paradigm

A "Hybrid Partner Support Management" implementation paradigm

Centralized Partner Support Management is defined as:

"1. The term or phrase that implies establishing and/or practicing the Discipline known as Partner Support Management as a concentric and singular set of organizations and services, usually in order to serve an entire enterprise, regardless of geographic location, further implying full centralization and no federation of any and all Partner Support Management associated Work, Activities, Actions, Tasks, Capabilities and/or Services."

Federated Partner Support Management, which is also referred to as Decentralized Partner Support Management, is defined as:

"1. The term or phrase that implies establishing and/or practicing the Discipline known as Partner Support Management in multiple pockets, communities, or organizations, further implying no centralization in the implementation and execution of Partner Support Management associated Work, Activities, Actions, Tasks, Capabilities and/or Services."

There are clear tradeoffs to each of the two models. For example, in a Centralized paradigm, it's normally easier to coordinate work and provide broad coverage, across many areas of the enterprise and relevant stakeholders. However, it becomes far more difficult for a centralized organization to properly fund and staff resources and services in order to perform all required work across all stakeholders, in a much larger enterprise.

It's also important to note that a third paradigm also exists as an option. This is known as a Hybrid Partner Support Management paradigm or model. In this case, there is a centralized Partner Support Management organization that is often responsible for things like centralized governance, command, control, and communications, while federated staff and services deal with localized forms of Partner Support Management. In this type of paradigm, federated staff and services usually report direclty into their local management but may have matrix reporting or responsibilities into the Centralized Partner Support Management organization.

A "Principle" is defined as being: "A professed assumption, basis, tenet, doctrine, plan of action or code of conduct for activities, work or behavior." Therefore, we can deduce the definition of "a Partner Support Management Principle" to be:

Partner Support Management Principle:"1. A professed assumption, basis, tenet, doctrine, plan of action or code of conduct for any activities, work or behavior associated with the Discipline known as Partner Support Management."

A "Best Practice" is defined as being: "One or more Activities, Actions, Tasks or Functions that often do not conform with strict Standards and that have evolved, over time, to be considered as conventional wisdom for consistently and repeated achieving Outcomes or Results that can be measured as being equal to or above acceptable norms." Therefore, we can deduce the definition of "a Partner Support Management Best Practice" to be:

Partner Support Management Best Practice:"1. One or more Partner Support Management related Activities, Actions, Tasks or Functions that often do not conform with strict standards and that have evolved, over time, to be considered as conventional wisdom for consistently and repeatedly achieving Outcomes or Results that can be measured as being equal to or above acceptable norms."

The plural form of this term would be "Partner Support Management Best Practices."

Common Partner Support Management related principles and best practices exist to help achieve higher than average expectations of quality and to ease in the implementation, support, operations, and future change associated with the solutions industry professionals put in place to address the needs of this Discipline and all its related stakeholders.

While this entire document is meant to represent and serve as a set of common principles and best practices for Partner Support Management, the following list represents a summary of some very basic examples of what implementers, supporters, and operators of Partner Support Management should constantly be working toward:

Principle or Best Practice

Description

Establish and always have very clear Ownership for Partner Support Management.

Establishing, publishing and socializing clear Ownership for Partner Support Management allows an enterprise and all its Resources, regardless of their geographic location, to assign accountability for all aspects of the Discipline. It also ensures that there's always at least one person that everyone can go to for transparency into the Discipline as well as for handling work that is associated with the Discipline.

As an IT professional, there are probably few things that are as important as knowing what is or is not in your portfolio, as well as understanding key traits about your portfolio. You cannot achieve this without the transparency provided by your inventories. Therefore, it is critical that you clearly define, collect, manage, and govern any and all relevant Partner Support Management inventories. Lack of Partner Support Management Inventories means no transparency, a chaotic and immature environment, and (even worse) the implication that you don't know how to do your job.

Always use standard terminology for Partner Support Management, in order to standardize communications between stakeholders.

It is often argued that the biggest mistake you can make is to create your own words and/or your own definitions, when communicating with others. There is no place where this is more accurate than in the field of Information Technology. IT Stakeholders make up their own words and definitions far too often, or let their business constituents do so. When you make up words or definitions, or you let others do so, you're creating a grave injustice for your organization. Self invented terminology and grammar often leads to poor communications, which in turn leads to redundancy of solutions, higher complexity of environments, slower delivery times, and much higher costs. Therefore, the IF4IT always recommends that you leverage standard terminology for Partner Support Management, whenever possible.

Centralization of Partner Support related data.

While often impossible to centralize and collocate all Partner Support related data and information, especially in a geographically dispersed environment, Partner Support Management related stakeholders should always strive to centralize all data and information. The goals are to eliminate data fragmentation, improve source of truth for data, reduce the number of systems needed to support stakeholders, reduce the complexity of solutions, improve usability, and to ultimately reduce the costs associated with Partner Support Management.

In order to successfully set up the discipline of Partner Support Management and its related Services, it is critical to clearly define, track, and constantly analyze Partner Support Management metrics. Such metrics include but are not limited to Supply and Demand Metrics (i.e. Operational Metrics), Performance Metrics, Quality Metrics, and Financial Metrics.

Transparency of Partner Support related data.

Stakeholders should always strive to make any and all Partner Support Management data transparent to all other appropriate stakeholders, at a minimum, and often to the entire enterprises. The exception when private user data must be protected. Many stakeholders often make the mistake of treating internal operational data as private or protected. This often creates a data silo and will often lead to internally silo-ed organizations that revolve around such data silos.

Do not let "perfection" of Partner Support Management solutions stand in the way of "good enough solutions".

Often, Partner Support Management stakeholders "overthink" solutions, leading to the impression that best-of-breed or perfect solutions are more effective than "good enough" solutions. Experience tells us that "good enough" is, almost always, the better path to follow. We live in an age where technologies grow old in the blink of an eye. Even the implementation of something that looks perfect, today, will look antiquated, tomorrow. This is especially true if your enterprise doesn't have a long term funding plan and commitment to improvements and upgrades of the solution(s) put in place.

One of the most common errors many enterprises make is to create solutions from scratch or without the guidance, assistance and/or experience of others who have created such solutions, before them. Whenever possible, the IF4IT recommends that you research existing Standards, Best Practices, and Guiding Principles to avoid the mistakes of others, while also gaining from their successes. Remember, we live in a vast world. Chances are very high that someone else has already experienced the pain you're about to create for yourself. Wise people will always look to learn from such people's experiences before they go down the road of implementing their own solutions.

Work toward and maintain a Single Source of Truth (SSoT), whenever possible.

While it may be impossible to truly maintain a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) for all data items at all times, especially in the case where the same data entity or instance enters an enterprise through unique data channels, it is an accepted, industry-wide best practice to always work toward such a goal.